


Normal Is Overrated (the We Are Family Remix)

by Moon_Destiny (Dahlia_Moon)



Category: Roswell (TV)
Genre: Community: schmoop_bingo, F/M, Gen, Post Series, Slice of Life, Vignette, chosen family, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-28
Updated: 2010-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-14 04:35:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dahlia_Moon/pseuds/Moon_Destiny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first Thanksgiving they celebrate while on the run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Normal Is Overrated (the We Are Family Remix)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [schmoop_bingo](http://community.livejournal.com/schmoop_bingo) for the prompt _family celebration_. ~~Also have really never written Roswell fic before~~ except for the small drabble I forgot about & have only re-watched one whole season only recently, yay?

Max and Liz spent their honeymoon in a run-down hotel near the Colorado border and after wards, after the money they had set aside for Max & Liz’s wedding ran out, they continued on eastward, to find jobs, to find somewhere to live for more than a week.

They ended up in Pennsylvania with Michael, Maria, Liz, and Kyle getting a job as waiters at a local restaurant while Max and Isabel started a dog-walking service in the neighborhood. Neither the restaurant nor the dog-walking service required recommendations or a resume that showed none of them had a permanent home that didn’t include living outside a van, mostly because they still passed as high school students (and they were technically, having graduated only a few months before).

They tried to adjust to their new lives, which included the very important rule of not using any alien super powers unless they wanted the FBI to get wind of unexplained goings-on and come hunting them down again. It was easy for Maria and Kyle to agree to the rule as they were perfectly normal and had no such temptations. Isabel, Max, and Michael – and to some extent Liz but only where her clairvoyant powers were involved – found it much more difficult to adhere to this rule. But they knew what was at stake and that one tiny slip up would mean they’d have to be on the run again. And life in Pennsylvania had gotten to be comfortable. It was no Roswell but it was…something. All they had at the moment.

~*~

The apartment studio with the one bathroom and two bedrooms and the spacious living room (the only thing it had going for it really) was filled with a strange smell the minute Michael got home from his shift.

He saw Isabel in an apron standing in the kitchen.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, Michael, I didn’t hear you come in. I was trying to cook us a delicious Thanksgiving meal but well…the turkey got too well done, I’m afraid.” She pointed to the blackened crisp of what Michael supposed was once a turkey sitting on their far too-small and too-wobbly kitchen table.

“It’s OK, I brought leftovers from the restaurant,” he handed her the two brown paper bags up before moving into the bathroom, all the while shedding clothing. He desperately needed a shower and had to get in before the others came home and sought their own turn.

~*~

It was a week before Thanksgiving when Isabel announced everyone should try to get off work early and that they’d all have Thanksgiving dinner together that night like normal families because that was apparently what they were now: a family, albeit an unorthodox one.

No one had wanted to object as Isabel was the happiest they had seen her since they went on the run. It was a small thing but one that meant a lot to her, it was obvious, and no one wanted to take it away from her.

~*~

Half an hour later, they all convened in the apartment, Max, Liz, Isabel, Michael and Maria around the table while Kyle stood around in the kitchen, trying to eat and hold his plate at the same time.

Isabel and Max talked about the clients they had to dog-walk for and their interesting pets. It made Isabel desperately want a puppy but it wasn’t feasible right then and there.

The other four talked about the restaurant, the people that came through and cared to talk to them. Some of them had even come from vacationing in Roswell and that stung like nothing else – the freedom everyone else had to come and go as they pleased while the six of them couldn’t afford such a pleasantry.

They had no idea how long they’d have to be on the run for; had no idea if they could even go back home some day.

It was alright for Michael – he had no more ties to Roswell once Maria decided to go with them – but for the others, it meant leaving their families and what they once called a normal life behind.

But they had each other and days like these – when they observed other people coming and going, carefree, some with families, some not – it made them appreciate that they had each other. They were still alive. And that? That counted for pretty much everything these days.

/fin


End file.
